We decided to rough it again, (to save money for Buenos Aires - where we are going to live it up a little), but we did choose the nicest hostel.
The Palenque is a gorgeous early 20th century building, lovingly restored, with stripped wooden floorboards, high ceilings, iron candelabra fittings and stained glass windows. Friendly and homely, they even have a big old golden labrador (C´s fave dogs) called Jujuy, who unfortunately was a bit nervus as there's been bombs going off all over town (protests across Argentina whilst we've been here, re rising fuel costs, 35% inflation, rising food costs etc - guess what, nothing on the BBC worldwide website, as we don't really report on South America, only North).
From its grand beginnings (one of Cordoba's richest families lived there), it now houses an array of backpackers looking for somewhere with a bit of character and somewhere cheap to stay. Our private double was only 13 quid between us per night!
For that saving, we thought, "Sod it, well do the shared bathroom thing". Which was actually remarkably OK, my big fear was having to pick other people's hair out of plugs (*gag* I know), but the Palenque seemed to be cleaned on a 5-minute basis, so everything was immaculate. It just reminded me of being a student though, having to listen out and wait until the bathroom becomes free before bagging it!
Our first day there, we dumped our stuff and head out for the afternoon. The lovely staff recommended a City Tour to get a feel for the town. C baulked when he saw the bus was sponsored by McDonald's but I assured him they wouldn't be making money out of us going on it and we didn't need to buy their fries. Instead we chanced upon a city food fair where lunched on delicious freshly-made empanadas (they did veggie ones, yay! You can tell we're out of Posadas).
Our tour took us from the Catedral de Cordoba in the centre of town, with it's "trompe l'oeil' shadows paved into the brickwork...
...past the convent where the nuns still live as they did 400 years ago, the brightly-painted art college buildings, a house built to rotate through the day to face the sun, some galleries I earmarked for further exploration, a beautiful old church with a missing a spire (built that way to represent man's imperfection)...
...and a "dancing water" display, where jets shoot up to classical music...it happens every hour, and it's all lit up at night, so we thought we'd take a wander down there later...
We found one swanky-looking restaurant in that vicinity that evening, but its windows were facing the other way so we couldn't see jack.
It was about to get more rubbish - turns out they only did bar snacks. I was STARVING so I ordered the most foody looking thing on the menu, mushroom pizza, sighing inwardly as I did so. My belly is like pizza dough!
Then it arrived and there was no tomato sauce. I pointed out this major ommision to the concept of pizza-ness to the waiter. He shrugged, pointed out that it did just say "cheese and mushroom pizza", so what was I to expect?!
Menus in Argentina are very very literal. If you order steak, that is exactly what you will get. No veg. No garnish. No chips. Just steak. Evidently ditto the pizza menu.
We by now had also missed the last showing of the dancing water, but consoled ourselves that it's on every day...so we just drank more wine.
Next day, Saturday 19th July was my dad's birthday. I sent him a text from C's phone as my Argie SIM was out of credit. Feel like *such* a student! It was raining so we visited an internet café and caught up on blogs a bit - I'm so behind now that we don't have our little routine any more.
Sent more emails to recruitment consultants. It looks bleak back home, loads of people are being axed from the Telegraph, News International, etc I've had the fear of God put into me by my mate Michelle who works in recruitment, and she said I really have to be realistic about my salary expectations when I get back in this current market. It's all doom and gloom. If I had known, I would have rented my house out properly and stayed out for a year. Seriously.
Also got an email off Tim, my oldest mate Lizzy's husband. She's now too ill with her cancer to respond to her own emails, so he was giving me an update. It's not good news. I decided there and then, as I hadn't smoked at all for the last few days of having a sore throat, (which I'd convinced myself was throat cancer) that I was simply not going to touch a fag ever again. I'm writing this over a month later, and weirdly because of Lizzy, it has been easy (not that I smoked loads, but it was a habit, a "with a drink" thing). I don't know if people are still reading, as I stopped writing for ages, but this is here as a pledge to you all.
C & I then decided to go check out a veggie buffet restaurant "Verde Siempre Verde" we'd read about. I had an unassuming doorway, tucked away on a busy high street. Most people rushed past it without even noticing it.
Inside seemed like a secret society, where closet non-meat-eating Argies could be safe, finally able to indulge their veggie/vegan desires. We looked around us at the clientele - they *looked* pretty normal. Heck! There were even men in business suits in there! But did their friends know? Their wives? Families? Colleagues?
I piled my plate high with anything and everything, thankful, for once, to not be limited to doughy thick pizza-base drowning in tasteless rubbery melted cheese. "Look at you! You're in Hog Heaven!" C laughed as I tucked in. 10 mins later I was full. I think having a buffet as the first meal of the day (we'd missed breakfast) doesn't work - my tummy couldn't cope with the sudden onslaught. So the one time I could eat everything in the room, I actually couldn't. Great!
We wandered round town, checked out a little art gallery close to our hostel, then scooted over to a rather splendid Art Deco arthouse cinema, but unfortunately there was nothing on we wanted to see (or could understand, if I'm going to be honest!).
Headed into a music store. C bought the new Coldplay album (every time he switched over to a music channel throughout our trip, it was driving him insane that he was only ever catching the last minute of "Violet Hill"!!!) - plus it was only £5 out here - and I snapped up a Bjork Live DVD that's not available in the UK, N.America or Europe. Cool!
An Argentinian girl saw me buying it and started chatting to me about how she'd love to see her, but all the stars only visit Buenos Aires when the come to Argentina. She was awed that I'd seen her in London before I came out. We take that stuff for granted over in London, don't we, centre of the universe and all that?!
As the afternoon melded into the evening we found the "UV Pop Bar" I'd read about earlier that day. It was funky but empty, and run by two guys. Was this our new Sampaka?!
We took up residence on a squishy sofa and proceeded to drink our way through the cocktail menu, whilst, bizarrely, watching Police videos (the band, not a crime thing), and then The Best of Later with Jools Holland.
The guys told me they downloaded it all from the internet (illegally) and pieced together their own video collections. They also said they couldn't find anywhere that played decent music in town, they loved English stuff and hated Cumbia (it *was* our new Sampaka! But with an indie vibe). Although I was a bit taken aback when on finding out we were from England, Juan shouted (only half-jokingly), "The Malvinas are OURS!". Er, quite.
C had met 3 other guys outside whilst having a fag and came and grabbed me to meet them. Hugo and his two pals were funny, spoke really good English and we passed a pleasant rest-of-evening with them sharing beers and (more) pizza. In the end, they gave us their numbers, said that they couldn't see us the next day as that was "Dia del Amigos" (Sunday July 20th, Friends' Day, why don't we start that in England?!) and they had dinner booked with their best friends, but that we could perhaps join them after. They also told us we should move to Cordoba as it was so cheap to live there. I could sell up my London house, buy 4-6 huge properties, live in one, rent the rest out and have no need to work. Food for thought, huh?
Can't remember what we did on our last full day in Cordoba, took a wander round, tried to find the thinnest building in the world, which our city tour had told us about (failed, I think she lied, cos Google says it's in Vancouver or something).
On our last night, we finally got to see the dancing water... then pottered onto a craft market, where I bought the last of my presents, and onto a proper milonga (Tango show) with dinner. When we got there, we were the youngest there by decades - although it was quite a fab show, and C noticed that Robbie Williams is alive and well and working, at least...which is nice.
Next day, before we set off for Rosario, we went to a fantastic gallery, the Palacio des Belles Artes, where C said he saw the best painting he'd ever seen...
...and I got arty with the architecture, which beautifully blended modern elements with the original building...
Next stop, Rosario...
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